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# The Hermetic Methods Of Vis Manufacture

#### by Brian Fourdraine

The copyright of this article remains with the original author. Articles may be copied or distributed freely for personal non-profit use, provided that the author is properly credited.

Well, Hermetic Magic seems quite adept at finding uses for vis, but very poor at finding means of generating vis, so your average covenant is always very obsessed with finding more vis. This document is intended to try and find means that SGs and players can find to MAKE vis sources, although these sources would always require some sort of substantial vis and/or time investment to work. These ideas may or may not be "out of paradigm" and it's really a troupe decision as to which - if any - of these are permissible.

### Option 1: Animal Husbandry

Animals that Hermetic wizards find can potentially be domesticated (using appropriate animal control spells), and used as vis sources. However, your average magical beast tends to be very vicious, and difficult to control; a magical wolf-pack may generate a supply of vis laden dead wolves who wander into the woods and die, but they would likely generate a large number of dead livestock and peasants if you were to raise them in/at a covenant as well (what would they eat?). However, Hermetic magic has within its capability the creation of animals - including magical ones. So what do we do? We engineer our own magical cow. A cow that has magical powers.

Conjuration Of The Magic Cattle (Level 50, Creo Animál)
R: Touch/Near D: Perm(?) T:Ind, Ritual
Spell Focus: Pieces of Cow & Bull Horns (+1)

This spell generates two bovines - one cow and one bull. The generated bovines have magic mights of 45, and at least one magical power which you must have requisites for. Aside from being dispellable by Perdo Vim magics, these are essentially normal cattle.

The type of vis these bovines would be good for depends on the highest level power they are given - cows capable of sensing magic would probably be sources of Intellego vis, cows that are immune to cold, heat and fire may be sources of Ignem vis (and very difficult to cook as well), etc. Cows whose vis type is Vim would maybe be allowable if they have the ability to sense, control and dispel magic, but SG discretion on that.

These cattle are size +2 for cows, and +3 for bulls. Draw up battle stats that make sense - bulls are commonly capable of killing ordinary people if they get angry.

Of course, since these cattle are not entirely natural, and are dispellable with Perdo Vim spells, SGs may rule that any magic in them must be distilled in a lab proceedure, or even isn't vis at all. Naturally, this would very much so piss off players if you don't tell them until afterwards, so making the decision before they carry out that level of in-game work would be a very good idea.

Wild griffins however are quite capable of breeding, and are used as a source of vis by those who hunt them; somewhere in the distant past a griffin must have been a wizard's creation. Finding out about whatever magic originally created griffins could be an ongoing adventure/game thread.

### Option 2: Agriculture

The sourcebook for Ars Magica seems very lacking in terms of rules concerning the enchantment of plants; however, if you want to take a crack at trying to make some, this could be a much less volatile version of animal husbandry (those animals could develop 'new powers' a few generations later to prevent magi from harvesting them so easily). Still, magical plants are as likely to get upset at being harvested as magical animals - the drive to survive being pretty universal. Magical plants could end up being just as difficult to deal with - or worse - than a stampeding herd of fire-breathing cows.

Still, certain plants have a known tendency to be parasitic to other plants - for example mistletoe. Such plants could be given magical powers to aid this parasitism and then harvested a few years later for some Perdo vis perhaps. (Who wants Perdo vis? It's good for lowering your lifespan!)

### Option 3: Harvest Other Energy Sources

This is an option which has already been proposed in various forms on the net, one of which is sanctioned by the ArM main rules; aura extraction. Some have proposed creating a magic item which harvests vis from auras, but others believe that a) this would allow magi to get too powerful, and b) that something as delicate as putting magic into the form of vis would require a magus and a ritual or some labwork instead of a device. What about some effect to at least gather the magic aura into a peak point where vis harvesting would be easier, and where maybe even vis would spontaneously crystallize? Well, the idea of manipulating an aura is also out of the realm of reasonable ideas for Hermetic magic with very good reason - we're talking about manipulating something which Hermetic magic can't create or destroy, and aura extraction itself is already very far from conventional Hermetic magic. If we let that happen, then we have very little stopping us from manufacturing auras and regiones to specification, so that magi can have full +10 aura bonuses and step outside their lab and back into an aura low enough to not warp the mundanes. This isn't acceptable, as it would basically allow custom manufacture of perfect vis sources as well - turning infernally flawed vis sources into magical ones by changing the aura for example.

Another less commonly proposed method is by draining body/fatigue levels from victims of various sorts (since vis is required to recreate a body level, why shouldn't the reverse be possible?). It's also possible to create animals that do much the same thing, and might even be recommended as animals don't require extra enchantment to allow them to move freely. (Invest an animal perhaps?) Some sort of enchantment to gather up the magical power (whatever its source) is required, and another to transform this to vis would have to be a ritual or lab proceedure. I would allow (as SG) the following level 30 spell:

The Theft Of Health (Level 30, Rego Corpus)
R: Touch/Near D: Mom T: Ind
Spell Focus: A Ruby (+3)

Allows the transfer of one body level from the target to the caster. If the target tries to resist this transfer, they roll a die + stamina, difficulty 6.

But how to transform bodily energy to vis is another question entirely; do we treat body levels as being equivalent to single pawns of vis of no art, that could be transformed to ordinary vis using the vis blender spell (Change The Nature Of Vis)? If this were the case, it would allow vis-free conversion of vis to other forms (almost) as you could pay the cost of transformation of a body level with a pawn of vis, and have the body level turn into any form of useful vis (with appropriate requisites). However, this spell isn't 4th ed. approved, and there is a good reason why; this makes the game more interesting as you actually have to go out and trade or hunt for vis types you want. (To say nothing of the fact that vis of a particular art is the purest representation of that art, and the idea of a ritual to swap your Ignem and Herbam scores is stupid, so a ritual to change the associations of vis should be similarly disallowed.)

It all boils down to the fact that a lot of good reasons get in the way of these brilliant ideas, so the only way to potentially allow any of it is an expansion of Hermetic theory by studying other magical styles (and even then, it isn't recommended that you allow it to upset the game balance, since that would be foolish). Perhaps eventually a ritual to grow an aura would be allowed, but I would rule the cost in vis to be prohibitive, to say nothing of the fact that some sort of power would have to sustain this magic field. Magi casting spells and having magic items around already does a fairly good job of growing and sustaining auras though - given enough of them, and enough time. I would allow the aura-growing ritual if I wanted my players to waste vis and time.

### Overall Conclusion:

Well, the holy grail of free vis has been very well designed out of the system. So well removed in fact, that we have no idea why or where it forms, or what energy is used to create vis. We have no idea how to encourage or discourage creating vis either, except perhaps that high auras might help, since they seem to help the one and only method of creating vis that magi know of.

The various methods explored above either unequivocally don't work, or are likely ruled impossible or "out of paradigm." In myths of the time, magi don't regularly go about creating and harvesting animals, although quests to find some are a common theme. Considering the high amounts of vis and knowledge involved in starting costs - by the time they have the vis to risk some on an experiment like that (that could be dispelled by someone powerful who didn't like you) they likely have enough for almost anything they want to do, or at least could write books to sell for vis to other covenants. Ditto with plants and agriculture, which is even less supported by the existing rules. Other power sources just don't seem to be translatable, except perhaps by some very odd non-hermetic magi.

If any wizard or covenant actually discovered this secret, they would obviously not sell or distribute it to anyone, and would probably start becoming more and more withdrawn and insular as they don't have to look outside of their own backyard for much. Eventually, the secret would be lost due to the magi who understood it dying - since this can't be avoided, no matter how much vis you spend. In short, a very good way of accelerating the covenant lifecycle (more vis means more chances for Twilight as well).

Individual SGs may invent interesting tables and systems for how some vis sources work, but as it is, the whole question of "where does vis come from, and why does it form?" is pretty unanswered. This is probably the way it should be, since limitless vis practically obliterates the delicate Ars Magica balance, turning the already very powerful wizards into near-gods. (If I wanted to play a god, I'd find a copy of the old game Populous.)

### Appendix: My Ideas On Aura Growth/Expansion/Upgrading

My idea was that if ever I had players who pressured me by trying to research the matter, I would wring them through several adventures, kill several grogs, companions, and maybe even a few magi, and eventually allow them to research this spell if they *really* wanted to:

The Magical Endowment (General, Creo Vim)
R: Per D: Perm/Inst T: Boundary, Ritual

A version of this ritual whose magnitude is ({old aura + 1} x 10) will upgrade the strength of the existing magical aura. Any area with either no mystic aura, or one or more auras other than magic is considered to be a magic aura of level 0 for this ritual.

If creating an aura for the first time, you may trace out the boundary of the new aura using your feet; otherwise the boundary of the spell is the already existing aura.

The lowest functional version of this spell is level 50, and the second lowest (for upgrading auras of 1) is level 100, so a large amount of vis must be on hand to cast this ritual, and also a very large number of magi with knowledge of Wizard's Communion.

An aura created with the unextended duration of this ritual will be quickly drained off by any aura extraction or conflicts with auras of other mystical realms. A number of seasons of non-destructive occupation by a covenant of item creating and spellcasting magi equal to the new aura strength squared, *may* allow the aura to become as solidly existant at the new level as a naturally grown aura (SG discretion if they will even allow this to EVER happen).

Only normal auras or auras generated with the longer duration may be upgraded; the aura is too volatile otherwise for such an act to work. Magi will be able to sense the volatility in the aura without spells.

Naturally, this spell would cost about 60 pawns of vis to upgrade a real aura of 2 to a real aura of 3, and 80 to upgrade a real aura of 3 to a real aura of 4. Consequently, I would be very able to stop the players from using this ritual if I didn't want them to by any number of means, including; demonic threats, Hermetic politics (it's bribe money!), people stopping by with books they want to sell for vis, thieves, brilliant ideas for new magical items, etc. In short, my GMing technique is that if the players want something they aren't allowed to have, make them pay way too much to have it, and keep it, but don't outright ban it. Of course, using this ritual to cure a gateway to Hell is a brilliant idea - except that it would require the efforts of countless magi (at least once you get to the level 500 version), and 11 *queens* of vis. To upgrade a magic aura of 9 to 10 itself would cost 2 queens of vis.